51.4 Ultramarathon....Completed
102.8 Mile Ultramarathon....Failed
Summery
My goal was to complete the full 102.8 Mile race with the 20,000 ft of elevation that came with it (that is 2/3 of Mt. Everest). But I was not successful in it. Around mile 6, I started to feel a twang on the outside of my left knee and by mile 30, I had full blown ITBS (IT band syndrome). Any type of activity at that point which involved some shock absorption was extremely painful. The truth is though, is that I probably could have prevented this from happening and it is my fault.
The silver lining in all this is that my time for the 51.4 mile race was actually really good at a 16th/50 finish despite my early injury. Also, I have learned about a weakness and that will allow me to aggressively correct it in the future.
I will be trying a 100 mile ultra in the future at some point again.
The Event
www.virgilcrestultras.com
The race was an "Out and Back" format. For the 51.4 mile, it was one round and the 102.8 mile was two rounds. Each round had about 10,000 feet of elevation gain/loss (1/3 of everest). This works out to be about 2 miles for the 51.4 and 4 miles for the 102.8, essentially a metric shit ton. Some of the race was actually up and down black diamond ski slopes to give you an idea of what that looks like. Aid stations every 5-6 miles, weather was a comfortable 65 degrees during the day and 55 at night.
One of the most challenging parts of this race compared with the last ultra I ran was the dead leaves. Having loose rocks and roots on the trail is to be expected but when they are camouflaged with dead leaves at makes foot placement really difficult. As a result, it is hard to make good time on these parts of the course.
My Training
During my time at school in the past month, I have been doing almost all of my running on some nice park trails behind my house. Some sections are quite technical but most are not. What these trails and all of Cleveland lacks though are any good hills to work with. The result being that most of my running was on flat terrain while most of my race was not. Overall, I had a few 40 mile weeks but mostly high 30 miles. My longest run in preparation for this race was also only 18 miles.
Some mistakes were made here.
My Night before/Morning of Preperation
There were a total of 5 different aid stations and I could have a drop bag at each of them. I took advantage of this and gave myself plenty of options. For every visit to an aid station, I had available to me:
- A slice of pumpkin pie / can of chicken noodle soup / can of raviolli
- A snickers bar
- A banana
- A red bull
- 2 Bottles of gatorade
- A granola bar
- A chocolate
Nutrition was never a problem for me and I felt that I stayed on top of that pretty well. I was also very will hydrated through out the entire race.
The morning of, I taped my feet but I made two critical errors. I forgot to apply vasoline and I suffered for it by having bad chaffing by mile 20. I also forgot to trim my toe nails. I am going to be loosing at least one.
My Racing Gear
Footwear:
For shoes I was wearing a pair of Asics enduros with about 200 or 250 miles on them. These shoes have served me well in the past seeing as I have owned 6 pairs of them. Superfeet insoles were also in there. As for socks, I went with my marathon and 50.2 mile strategy: a thin running sock covered by a thick thorlo cushioned sock.
Notes for myself: I have to play around with my sock shoe combo. It is just not working out like it used to. I got blisters under the calloused pads of my feet along with the inside edges of my feet.
Backpack:
I got a camel pack for this one. Good choice on my part because I stayed hydrated seeing as I had to pee every 2-3 miles. It was pretty comfy too.
Clothing:
During the day I was wearing compression shorts, short shorts and a sleeveless top. At night, I threw a long sleeve over it. This wasn't enough, I'll put on some more next time.
The Race
0-10 Miles
This was pretty easy terrain. I found a guy wearing a "SEALFIT" t-shirt and starting talking to him. It turns out that he was also an engineering student planning on enlisting after he graduates which was pretty cool. This was also his first Ultra though and he was going out at a fast pace for the 51.4 Mile. This means that me running with him for the first part was probably a bad idea but eventually passing him was probably a worse idea. Even so, this part felt easy but I started to feel that someone was up with my knee.
10-20 Miles
The terrain, for this part, was much harder. The two biggest climbs of the race were in this section. One up a black diamond ski slope and another up a very technical trail of about the same grade. I realized at this point that I had forgot to apply vasoline.....ouch. Also, my left knee continued to be giving me problems. I talked with another runner and told him about what I was feeling and he told me about ITBS.
20-30
This part was almost all on some very technical trails. My knee has gotten as bad as it was going to get here, I had spent far too much time running on something that was clearly out of commission. After the 25 mile turn around, when I got to the first aid station on the way back, a guy noticed me limping and shuffling and offered me some iburprofen. This was awesome because I could run the flat parts of the course again pretty decently.
30-40
Here I was at the bottom of the ski slopes again with a bum leg but I climbed them in pretty decent time and shuffled down them. The iburprofen wore off quick and I was back to the same story again.
40-50
The terrain on these section was relatively easy. I was doing my best to run on the easy trails, shuffle run the downhills and walk the uphills. I made it back to the start line for a 12:24 finish time for the 50 mile. A time that would put me at 16th place for the 50 mile. I got a sweet mug for it too. I almost thought about DNFing right there because every step I took was shooting pain up my leg, but I decided to try to power walk the next 50 miles and see how if the pain would ease up if I avoided running at all. At the 50 mile mark, I took off my shoes and swapped my socks. At this point, I found that I had blisters under the balls of both of me feet and a quarter sized one on the inside of my bum leg foot (probably from running like a gimp). I put a needle in all of them and drained them and it felt a lot better. Also, every application of vasoline to was getting pretty painful because the skin was/is raw.
50-62.2
About a half hour after I left the start/finish line for a second loop, it was dark enough that I needed my head lamp. Night was here and it was erie to be in those woods like that. With only a handful of people still on the course strung out along these 50 miles, seeing other runners was quite rare. I did not linger long at the 55 mile aid station. I was trying to keep my pace to a decent level. My final 5.4 miles on the course were quiet arduous. Time had proven to me, that my leg was not going to feel any better if I did not run on it and this section was quite technical. I misplaced my footing a couple times and stumbled, having to catch myself with the bum leg. I made the decision about halfway through this section that to continue on like this for 40 more miles was going to destroy my left knee beyond any reasonable "non-surgical" ability to repair.
I ended my race here.
Decision to DNF
I know that this race was not beyond my ability to complete with just "run of the mill" injuries like blisters and chaffing. Things like that hurt pretty bad, but they are only superficial wounds. An inflamed IT band on the other hand is no joke and I am going to be spending a while rehabing this injury before I can run again. Whether or not an extra 40 miles would have made my injury much more severe, I dont know but the 10 miles that I simply walked after I finished the 50 mile proved that walking on it was making it worse. I struggled with this decision from about mile 40 onward when I realized it was getting worse as I spent longer on it. Of course, I am not pretending that my IT band excuses me from quitting as I did. It is my fault that I did not prepare and I deserve the shame of having quit on this.
From this I have learned a very important lesson. Prehabing for endurance events such as this should have been a serious consideration of mine. Despite what mental endurance you might have, despite how strong, how fit, how fast you are, ugly preventable overuse injuries can ignore all of that and bring you down. In the future, as I train for events like this and to eventually complete BUD/s, I vow to make this a primary focus of mine. I foresee much more stretching and oddball exercises in my future.
